The awful truth about CDs, do they have the same shelve life as LP's ?

This was an issue back in the late 1980s/early1990s and dealt primarily with discs manufactured for Hyperion.  This was attributed to discs manufactured by a specific CD pressing company, and dealt with a lacquer coating that eventually allowed air to reach the aluminum 'data' layer and cause oxidation.  Most of the labels that used this particular manufacturer were classical in nature (e.g., Deutche Gramaphone, Archiv).

http://www.classical.net/music/guide/society/krs/excerpt3.php

Of my 2,000 cds, I have had only 2 discs become unplayable: both were HYperion label and both showed discoloration suggesting oxidation of the aluminum layer.  None of my other discs, including ones dating back to the mid-1980s, all still play with no problem.

I have thousands of CDs (unfortunately, no joke) going back to the 1980s (I bought the first Meridian modded Phillips top loading CDP) and have had only a handful go "bad" - if that.

I too read the PS Audio email talking about CD longevity issues...  Having a vested interest (like most of us) this is my experience and research.

30+ years ago, while in college I used the new miracle of word processing technology to write my papers, Word Perfect was the greatest then.  First saving my files to the standard 3 1/2" floppies (5" had just gone out of favor about 10 years earlier), then moving to ZIP drive, then to MO drive, then to CD rewrites, then to HD, then to servers - why so many???  Because as the years and decades clicked off, I found that each medium would fail, every last one, not a single one was 100% safe as archival.  The US Library of Congress has found the exact same thing.  Now having said that, there are several factors that contribute to archival failure - manufacturing, materials, radiation, heat, moisture, storage, handling, and so on...  Again, my research has only verified what the Library of Congress has researched, many universities has researched, and my own eyes of personal experience through the decades...  

So to cut to the chase - CD's and vinyl are definitely the best, hands down by a long shot, archival medium existing today as long as (here is the key) the initial manufacturing and materials were sound and they are handled and stored safely and protected from heat, UV, and moisture.  Both mediums, as such, should last for 100+ years.  Again the key is proper handling, storage, and protection...  Both mediums are fragile, vinyl a bit more than CD.

The argument in Paul's article was to copy/burn all your music to digital (not to mention Paul's great new products related to digital...hint hint).  Again, to cut to the chase; if you want luxurious convenience to scroll through and enjoy your music collection from the comfort of your armchair then by all means move your collections to digital BUT, be warned!!!!  Digital storage is significantly worst than old fashion parchment for archival storage!!!!  Google and the other data enterprises replace all their hard drives every 3 to 5 years for a reason and they use enterprise/industrial quality units too not cheapo retail drives.  Hard drives fail fast (in comparison) and the new solid state drives are no better and some worse than the spinning platter.  Data centers/cloud computing keeps data because that data is constantly recopied somewhere else...  but does this continuous recopying of files possibly introduce errors, of course.  I have several photo files that have been recopied numerous times and I have noticed pixel errors and even complete file corruptions.  

Again, I read Paul's article and again I had hopes of the future well up inside me but again after revisiting my sources I still do not see digital even close to gaining my trust of protecting my music or anything else for that matter.  

sfall
Is it possible PS Audio’s customers buy their products because they use good parts, not cheap ones?

Read carefully again sfall, I didn’t say they buy cheap parts.
I said they’d save a considerable percentage on manufacturing costs by not have to purchase a quality cd transport at all from suppliers.

Just build a dac/streamers with no CD mechs. . Which equals many more dollars profit, as they would cost 1/3 less to manufacture and retail for around the same. So it's in PS Audio best interest to see the demise of DC 

BTW I do run a business, look at my avatar.
Cheers George

A fave Little Feat "boxed set" of 4 CDs from maybe 15 years ago has started to decompose (no puns please). Bummer.